Tea Partiers thought this session was their time to shine, after helping to elect and elevate the GOP to supermajority status in the state House. As The Texas Tribune's Thanh Tan reports, they're somewhat satisifed with the budget cuts, but extremely disappointed other pet issues were left unresolved.
The Texas Tribune is pleased to provide the opportunity for you to share your observations about this story. We encourage lively debate on the issues of the day, but we ask that you refrain from using profanity or other offensive speech, engaging in personal attacks or name-calling, posting advertising, or wandering away from the topic at hand. To comment, you must be a registered user of the Tribune, and your user name will be displayed. Thanks for taking time to offer your thoughts.
Comments (69)
Thomas Darby
Voters keep doing the same thing and expect a different result. Einstein said to do this was stupid. Sending a competent candidate to the dysfunctional environment in Washington is punishment. The 535 member Congress is dysfunctional and very expensive. An amendment to the Constitution is not likely to pass. It is time for a Constitutional Convention composed of the best and the brightest and charged with devising an efficient and effect Federal Government.
Dale Curry
I have news for Ms. Fleming, Texas does not need, want, or desire the lies, rhetoric, and disinformation the tparty brings to the table. Nor do we need their history of race baiting, bigotry, and threats. Furthermore, she can feign her dissatisfaction with the results of this legislature; but since she and others like her elected this legislature, they now own the results. See you at the polls.
John Holladay
JoAnn certainly has it right - the GOP failed the conservatives! The GOP Is not us!
The 82nd Session was a failure with a lack of leadership from Perry and all the rest. Out of 20 bills five were stripped down before the vote and being sent to Perry. You do the math – that is an “F”.
Perry has showed he has no business running to national office. He needs to focus on Texas – which he has not done lately.
Time to clean House and Senate.
John Holladay
Dale, one lie please. Just one clear lie!
What race baiting?
Note that many in the 82nd session said they would do one thing and then did another - now those are lies.
Dale Curry
@ John Holladay - Well being tparty you should know about lying. Here are few examples of tparty bigotry, all taken at tparty rallies.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S38VioxnBaI
Dale Curry
Another lie would be that Perry has not carried out your lege agenda. So, to recap, tparty does not get to disclaim this lege. It was your agenda, by the people YOU elected. Like Powell told Bush, you break it you bought it.
Dale Curry
Oh and another one from your darling stupid tparty candidate of the day, and the 2009 Politifact LIE OF THE YEAR:
DEATHPANELS
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2009/dec/18/politifact-lie-year-death-panels/
Dale Curry
And of course there was the 2010 Politifact LIe of the Year:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/
Dale Curry
Or the one from the tparty darling, Michelle Bachman that the president took a trip that cost $200 million per day
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2010/dec/16/lie-year-government-takeover-health-care/
Dale Curry
I will be happy to continue but it might just be easier to go to Politifact and check out their "hall of infamy" believe me, the tparty is well represented.
So much for lies, shall we deal with mendacity now?
Dale Curry
Awfully quiet there John, did I answer your question?
Karen Cummings via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Why does the Tea Party hate education?
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Sucks to be you.
Michael B Openshaw
Dale, your own rhetoric is stale, and you keep pitching that same old tired video of signs cherry-picked from tens of thousands (more than one of which were liberal plants). It's a simple fact; the Tea Parties are not racist. If they were, Michael Williams, Ted Cruz, Alan West, Marco Rubio, and Herman Cain would not be Tea Party favorites. And I wouldn't have a family that looks like the UN (and works WAY better) and be a local leader. Sorry: the 'racist' dog won't hunt.
And John has gone quiet because he's busy actually accomplishing things, rather that watch you cut and paste the same content you always do. But go ahead and keep cutting and pasting your leftist points; it seems to make you feel like some sort of winner. Knock yourself out.
Aldo Merino via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wait...irrational, ideological, political novices in costumes didn't get what they wanted? Shocking.
Michael Seifert via Texas Tribune on Facebook
"pet issues". . .a phrase that in this case makes me think of cold-blooded reptile type pets. . .
Chris Thornton via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The TEA Party hates taxes, not education. Taxed Enough Already
Tom Sweazea via Texas Tribune on Facebook
These people are very, very dangerous. Texas was seized in an illegal GOP coup d'état in 2000 perpetrated by convicted State Felon Tom DeLay. BTW...why isn't Traitor DeLay dancing with the stars in a TDC orange jumpsuit?
Dale Curry
As to education and the tparty, it is not so much that they hate education, they will attack anyone, anygroup, so long as it is some form of right wing social engineering and/or deflects the attention from their screw-ups, race baiting, and/or from the lies inherrent in their rhetoric.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
As to education and the tparty, it is not so much that they hate education, they will attack anyone, anygroup, so long as it is some form of right wing social engineering and/or deflects the attention from their screw-ups, race baiting, and/or from the lies inherrent in their rhetoric.
Ann Pittman-Thompson via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So they weren't happy with just gutting public education and making sure that the indigent would have more difficulty with health care, they also want to get into Federal safety regulations (TSA). They just scare me. They speak about individual rights, but want to take away women's rights at any opportunity. They are the party of ANTI anything.
Candyce Byrne via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Chris, you've been sold a bill of goods. As has become increasingly clear, the corporations and billionaires that have commandeered our political system have shrugged out from under their fair share of taxes, leaving the burden on the rest of us. There is no need to gut education or any other facet of a civil society. Tax the rich. And hold them accountable for their destruction of not only our democracy but our environment.
Joe Estep via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Just like in baseball, there is always next year.
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You hate taxes? Ok then. Why don't you go and move to a city where there are no public safety services, no roads, no infrastructure, no public works or utilities, no public education, no social services, no nothing.
Aldo Merino via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Mogadishu beckons.
GS Crispus
We don't need to ask Oppenshaw to cognitive dissonance away the racists in the Tea Party. That’s not the issue at hand. It’s the economy stupid, and how a populist movement is showing itself to be completely ignorant to economic truths.
All we need to ask him is why he and Ms. Fleming think that since they have rallied for the Koch Brothers and other industrialists for the last forty years, why their jobs have been outsourced and their employment protections eroded? I thought if we followed supply side economics, bent over backwards for the top in this country as it were, the corporations would create jobs? What happened? Business is supposed to create jobs, right?
Hmm, maybe labor is an EXPENSE and business, to quote Milton Friedman, "has no other responsibility than to make a profit and play by the rules." Unfortunately, they quite often make the rules, and have no interest in hiring or paying people a fair wage unless they have no other method than to do so. In the past unions and government intervention have ensured inequality is minimized, but Mr. Oppenshaw and others have pursued a "laissez-faire" policy of government deregulation over the last several decades to empower those at the top at the expense of the bottom. Is it any wonder why wages have stagnated and the wealth at the top has skyrocketed?
We have a perfect example here from Ms. Flemings (and Oppenshaw in previous postings), a fundamental misunderstanding of economics. To them, it’s an "us vs them" between the public and private sector. Divide and conquer. If they perceive the public sector is doing well, then they have to act like crabs in a bucket and tear those people down. I doubt they were ever rallying to bring the salaries of teachers up in the 90s and other periods when public salaries lagged far behind the private sector. They are complaining now because their cake has been taken away from them -- by the same corporate interests funding their little Tea Party. Crab thinking.
Keep cutting government jobs and cutting taxes. You will only decrease demand, and corporations and the savers will keep sitting on their savings and not putting it to use in the economy. It won't bring your job back, but if such top down policies continue, it may erode the interest for the people to work and play by the rules. That would be devastating for all.
Peggy Santschi-Yacoben via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Our children will suffer the consequences of their decisions now, but they will be held accountable for their actions in the polls!
Reform Immigration for Texas Alliance (RITA) via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Texas did better on immigration this session. Some may not like it, but law enforcement, faith leaders, business owners, veterans, students, families and workers are grateful today. The failure to pass anti-immigrant laws is a boost to our Texas values!
Jose B. Gonzalez via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Tea party folks are missing a KEY point and nothing anyone says will get them to reason. Getting RID of tax BREAKS for big companies ISN'T raising taxes - its called getting rid of scratch my back favors... Same could be said for many other so called tax increases....
WUSRPH
Maybe now they will take the time to actually read the Constitution they talk so much about and perhaps even the Federalist Papers which Madison, Jay and Hamilton wrote to explain it to folks. If they do, they might learn that the system was specifically designed to make it difficult to enact major changes....or, as Madison put it, "to avoid the momentary passions of the mob". You have to work for change. It does not happen just because you say the major words "we want change". It may even take a Session or two....Unfortunately, these folks have such a limited attention span that they demand it all happen within five minutes of they will hold their breath until they turn blue....If you want "change" (whatever that may be) WORK FOR IT. That's the way it was intended and, hopefully, that is the way it will stay until you guys get your "instant government"---which in most places is called totalitarian.
Michael B Openshaw
Whoops, the racist thing isn't sticking! Quick what other standard talking points was I handed at that 'Liberalism for Dummies' class... right, the Koch Brothers, evil corporations card!
Don't know the Koch brothers, don't care what their view of the world is. Certainly don't receive funds from anyone (unlike some of our MoveOn counterparts...who get a lot of the funding from one of those 'evil' billionaires- as does the Trib.)
The rest of it is simple math. We are spending-0 and massively obligated to spend- WAY more money than even exists, even if you took every taxable nickel from everyone making more than 100K. Spending is what has to give for the most part.
BTW: your local reporters have been routinely redact my comments about the fatcat GOP big donors who don't want to give up their semi-slave population of illegal labor and have all workers on the same playing field, nor do the consumers want to pay the costs that free enterprise would set on many things if all labor was LEGAL and how the Rule of Law is paying that price. (But am NOT for Amnesty: return; secure; then legal, tight work permitting, every worksite; that supports the rule of law). Those comments just don't fit the image the press wants to cast of the Tea Party, so they drop them.
John Holladay
The Tea Party groups are a big mix of views and people. They should not be maligned just because they have a different view. Also painting with a wide brush is foolish. Few, even in the movement, some really understand all that the movement is.
Remove your presupposition to understand.
And to clear up one thing up about me – I do not “pigeon hole” myself as a Tea Party person.
I am against elitist politicians supported by big money (be it corporation in Texas or unions in Wisconsin).
I am against using the tax code to “force” action. Too many times Dems/GOP has written tax laws to “cause” something – for example this was put in place ages ago to improve the housing market, with tax incentives.
The 82nd Session want wrong because politicians did not do what they said they would do. Special interest got to them – pure and simple. Heck Dale, special interest gets to your reps also. We should join forces to stop this special interest influence.
Dale, time for another a bunch more rants from you – that will keep you off the street. You have fallen right into the trap to show the foolishness out there.
John Holladay
For those who think the Tea Party or grass roots movement is getting big corporation money – not hardly – all the money I see comes from folks who went out and earned it, right out of our own very small pockets.
Please, if I am wrong show me facts not accusations.
We on both sides who love our country need to get the big money out of our political system. The individual person is what is important, or rather “who” is important. We the People need to determine what happens and what laws are passed not the corporation or billionaires or unions.
I think I could even link arms with Dale on this – we take our country back from the elite politicians funded by special interest.
Dale, what do you say? Join me in fighting big money and let them spend that money on hiring not fighting you and me.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ John - I am all to happy to support anyone's initiative that gets big money out of elections. And if your side would back off from weakinng workers rights, I would agree we should add unions to that list.
Marcus Cunningham via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Tea Party's day will come when parents, students, and lower income families look up this fall and find gutted schools and slashed essential services.
Bambi Clark via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Tea Party are nothing but Koch brother pawns.
GS Crispus
Openshaw, please don't misconstrue my reluctance to make this about race as conceding the point. I have no desire to waste my time pointing out the xenophobic and racist comments and statements made by Tea Party officials and the candidates they support nationwide. Videos, images, and statements can speak for themselves on that matter. My concern is to address the economic damage your movement is doing to the nation through its boundless ignorance. The world economy does not deserve to be held hostage because those in the Tea Party are ignorant of macroeconomics.
GDP = Consumption+Investment+Government Spending. We have seen a reduction in government spending at the state and local level due to economic downturn, federal stimulus that has done little more than maintain that diminished spending (not petering out), and consumer spending that has dropped because people have lost their jobs and are burdened with debt.
Spending cuts are not expansionary (as seen above), we have seen this play out in the United Kingdoms and Ireland with their negative GDP growth due to painful austerity measures. Although, if you are going to suggest that is what needs to be done, the removal of tax credits do the same thing. Please be logically consistent, it is simple math, after all.
We have a demand issue that should be addressed through additional government spending, but has been hurt by the tax policies of the last administration (I think the argument at the time is we should not be running surpluses). Your beliefs have gotten us into this mess, and pretending low taxes will get us out of it will only maintain suffering, and ensures your ideology of destroying government programs (whether intentional or not) will continue to be the order of the day. I’m not sure how that benefits Tea Party folk, but high unemployment and favorable corporate tax policy is certainly benefiting the owners of corporations.
Don't take my word for it, former Reagan advisor Bruce Bartlett has talked about this before. Many other economists from DeLong, Krugman, and Mankiw have already dismissed Reagan era arguments.
"What really matters for growth"
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2268/what-really-matters-growth-its-not-tax-rates
"Tax cuts do not pay for themselves"
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2276/no-gov-pawlenty-tax-cuts-dont-pay-themselves
"Will taxes tank the economy?"
http://capitalgainsandgames.com/blog/bruce-bartlett/2284/will-higher-taxes-tank-economy
If we truly are interested in living without means, than perhaps we should look at what is being proposed by the various factions in Washington. The only true fiscally conservative plan I have seen out of Washington is the one by those crazy liberals in the Progressive caucus. Tax increases, spending cuts, and spending reform.
http://cpc.grijalva.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=70
As for xenophobic based immigration reform, we can see just how well your ignorance of economics is working in Georgia. Millions of dollars in crops are rotting in the fields because the anti-immigrant laws were successful there. The policy ignored that farming is a low margin business, and no government subsidies or intervention was proposed along side the removal of this cheap labor force.
Fear not, the market will correct itself as small and medium farmers close shop and are bought up by large scale corporate farming. I am sure we will get immigration reform after the market correction. The laws in Alabama that criminalize association with illegal immigrants may erode those freedoms we all love so much though.
As for Koch Brother involvement in your organization, perhaps you should look deeper into where your funding and training is coming from. The Tea Party is part of the problem.
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/scarce/cnn-koch-brothers-fund-tea-party
Dale Curry
@ GS Crispus
Well said. In fact, perhaps the most saliet and clear post I have read here. I encourage you to repost it again through your Facebook account, I would very much ike to share it on my wall. If you do not have a facebook account, or would not like to post through there, I would be happy to post through my page. Thanks again!
Michael B Openshaw
GDP = Gross Domestic Product; spit it out.
Sorry, but the government is the most inefficient of producers- period. Only by taking the production of others and applying it elsewhere. Moving GDP from government to Consumption+Investment results in what? More tax revenue from increased income. Even JFK understood that- and applied it.
As for Georgia, I haven't see it slid off into the sea; wages and prices will now adjust withing LEGAL free enterprise. It also will in South Carolina, that just passed immigration laws. And the progressive predictions of gloom and doom in Arizona have NOT come true.
As for Washington, the Ryan plan is a start- and not based on pie-in-the-sky growth numbers, nor a lack of understanding of the dynamic nature of tax policy (the more you tax something, the less activity in that area, causing static revenue estimates to be missed- often by large amounts).
And, if our group is xenophobic we are sure showing it in funny ways with who we support, are married to , and associate with. But then, the all-white staff of MSNBC would tell you different, wouldn't they?
Peggy Santschi-Yacoben via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Better on immigration?Tell that to the families of the Officer who was killed by an ILLEGAL immigrant!I think not!
Peggy Santschi-Yacoben via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Close our Borders!
Tom Sweazea via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Well Peggy, once the GOPTeaparty takes the US to 3rd World status, we won't have to worry about the borders as no one will want to come.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ MIke - Why would we adopt the Ryan plan when your own Conservative Think Tank, The Heritage Foundation said that it would increase borrowing from the Chinese. To wit: That's the analysis from the Heritage Foundation. They calculate the cumulative trade deficit over the next decade will be almost $1 trillion greater under the plan put forward by Representative Ryan than under the current baseline. This is measured in 2005 dollars. If we used current dollars then the sum would be more than $1.3 trillion over the course of the coming decade.
And I would hope that your side has realized the nation see's it for what it is, more failed tparty policies that are some continuation of the failure of Bush/Cheney that left us with an 89% increase in our natinal debt.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The Ryan Plan is just that much more failed right wing social engineering.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ Mile - You know, we are all very happy your family is diverse. But if you can keep telling us about it as an example of tparty tolerance (LAUGHABLE CONCEPT) then the video gets posted:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Examples of tparty "tolerance" taken at multiple rallies:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Clearly the tparty is the philisophical children of Dixiecrats with a little Joe McCarthy thrown in.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So yes Mike, there is a large element within your movement that is clearly xenophobic. And if you, as a group do not distance yourselfs from it (by acknowledging it) you can expect to see this, and more examples of the LARGE racist element throughout this campaign.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then there is this new study:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
From the Universiy of Washington:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And furthermore, it was this element that has given rise to the Bigoted Birther Movement. Why will you NOT disavow at least that element? It is clearly racially motivated!
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then there is the sad case of Mark Willilams:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Continuning on he said: "Freedom means having to work for real, think for ourselves, and take consequences along with the rewards," Williams reportedly wrote. "That is just far too much to ask of us Colored People and we demand that it stop!"
And still you tell us the tparty does not have a racist element to it.
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then there is the Shirley Sherod video, which was doctored and taken way out of context
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
All of the preceeding criminals had some ties to the tparty
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
It is my understanding that the racist element who descend to these activities call it Mexican Hunting
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
You can see examples of this on our very own State of TX Ag Commission Website dedicated to "border" issues
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The there is Glenn Beck, bigot darling of the tparty:
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
On the 47th anniversary of the March on Washington, Glenn Beck will lead a rally called "Restoring Honor" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. You know, the place where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his landmark "I Have a Dream" speech.
How would you have felt it Planned Parenthood, the Communist Party of the USA, and Socialist all had a rally in support of everything you hate at Ronald Reagan's library?
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
And furthermore, if you do not think the Congressman who yelled, "you lie" at the President during his speech to joint session of Congress is not Racist, then you have no credibility to comment on the racist element of the tparty. There are many more examples I can "cut and paste" for you here. But what is the point, other than to reach those who start buying the deficit rhetoric (your side so conviently speaks about, but were the very one's who took us from surplus to deficit).
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Then there is the case of Tea Party Express spokesman, Mark Williams who
Dale H Curry via Texas Tribune on Facebook
So, even after "cutting and paste" all this, and there is SOO MANY MORE EXAMPLES, you point to the diversity in your family and say tht it proves the tparty is NOT racist.
GS Crispus
@Openshaw
More correctly, the government tend to be more inefficient than the private sector, but you are framing the discussion that efficiency is the only thing we should be concerned about. A business is only concerned with achieving a profit in the most economically efficient way possible. A government, on the other hand, is to be concerned with the welfare of its people. A government is not a business, and therefore their concerns are different. I don’t think you understand what having a government run like a business means.
In the current economic crisis, we have large amounts of capital sitting in banks, reduced consumption, and high unemployment. Businesses are sitting on large amounts of capital and have slashed production and employment and are achieving record profits even with reduced demand. Consumers burdened with debt and living in the realities of a shaky job market, have reduced consumption. The government, concerned with full employment, can spur the economy by encouraging those resources to be used by both taxing and spending them, and through encouraging spending through negative interest rates and other initiatives. Reducing unemployment is the short-term focus; deficit reduction should be the long-term goal (and the government showed itself capable of doing so in the 90s).
You reference Kennedy’s marginal tax reduction to 70%, but in the early 1960s, he also passed a large stimulus package to put people back to work in construction, lowered the retirement age for social security/increased payment size, expanded unemployment benefits, strengthened environmental regulations, and increased the minimum wage. I could go on.
There is something to be said about the deadweight loss of taxes as you near 100% (it is exponential), but we were running 93% marginal tax rates under Eisenhower, with no impact to GDP growth, and we are nowhere near the tax rates of the 50s and 60s. Taxes are but one factor to economic growth, and I find their effects to be very minimal:
GDP Growth & Highest Marginal Tax Rates
http://imgur.com/sSqYt.png
As for Georgia, I think you are looking at it in a simplistic way. If Georgia existed in a vacuum, we might see a market correction as you assume, but Georgia exists among other states that still have access to cheap labor and Georgia is competing in a world market for produce (Argentinian apples are still competitive when you factor in transport costs for instance). Farming is a low margin business. Cheap labor will move to surrounding states, and depress wages there further, and markets will move from buying the now more expensive Georgian produce to cheaper alternatives domestically and internationally. I am sure it will correct itself when large corporate farms buy out the little guy, who can then begin blaming government for all their ills.
My question to you, is why you think the government should involve itself between those who are seeking work? It does not seem logically consistent with your beliefs. We obviously have no problem with the free flow of capital to China (it is legal free enterprise) and the outsourcing of employment to the third world; why then are we making a fuss about labor doing the same here? It does not seem economically efficient to create barriers to entry, unless there are other concerns in the economy than efficiency.
John Holladay
Correction - most governments are not really concerned for their people - many are concerned for self-preservation.
Another correction - most in the conservatives are very concerned about losses of jobs overseas. Now what caused this? Over government control and liberal policy.
Look at all the socialist countries past and present – the big money elite (just like in the USA) did what they did for themselves not for you and me. They lie about who it is for.
Now if what you say is true why did BHO take care of the immigration issues when he had the Senate and House? I contend he doesn’t care about you and me – we pawns.
You greatly misunderstand the Tea Party 99.9% are lower middle class who have worked their whole lives or are still working. You are making erroneous assumption about Mike Openshaw & JoAnn Flemming. I know the hard left will never see there truth, o well.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@Karen: Tea Partiers and conservatives do not "hate education," they are committed to REPAIRING it. The cost of public education has more than doubled in Texas in the last decade, and that is because of all the fuzzy nonsense associated with outcomes-based education. We have almost as many administrators and non-teaching personnel in schools now as we have teachers. It's not education, it's indoctrination and perpetual job security for administrators
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
@ RITA: the laws were not designed to curb "immigration." Immigrants are welcome. What you are supporting is ILLEGAL immigration and reconquista. You want a civil war, pass an amnesty.
Dave Mundy via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Wouldn't all you leftists be more comfortable back home in California, Illinois, Massachusetts and Michigan? Oh, right -- we have all the jobs here in Texas. Well, please be aware that Texans are not going to allow you to do to our state what you did to yours.
Ryan Griffin
We don't need smaller government, what we need is more efficient government.
Nowhere in the Constitution is the Citizens United ruling protected. Corporations were never guaranteed the power to control elections by our founding fathers. They should be stripped of that power because it corrupts the legitimacy of our government.
I can't take the Tea Party seriously.
They voice none of my concerns and spout inaccurate, counter-productive nonsense.
Rudyg43
TEA party voters need to stand behind the rest of the Texas voters when it comes to the legislature. Gross incompetence flourished in Austin as Perry and his croonies shove through BS laws bordering on religious zealotry! Texans voted these Yahoos into office, now they will have to live with the consequences. Next time be very careful who you can trust to get action to and for the general public, and not religious zealots, intent on making you do their will. Additionally, any career politician, who promises the moon should be looked at very closely for any radicalization or length of time in office as, Absolute power corrupts. If your not happy with the current of legislators, may I suggest cleaning house and starting over! What do y'all expect from these crusading Social Conservatives? They will throw the children under the school bus at the expense of their richest super-millionaires buddies. This is what you get in a one party state! Jim Hightower said: "Politicians are like diapers, they need to be changed often and for the same reason." Texas has a career Governor since Texas does not have term limits! Y'all voted him into office, now it's time to vote him out!